the calf, and when we expected to see it drop in the
water, after a little hesitation, it, too, got out of the water, and
dashed up the hill, though in a somewhat different direction. All this was
the work of a few seconds, and our hunter, having never seen a moose
before, did not know but they were deer, for they stood partly in the
water, nor whether he had fired at the same one twice or not. From the
style in which they went off, and the fact that he was not used to
standing up and firing from a canoe, I judged that we should not see
anything more of them. The Indian said that they were a cow and her calf,
--a yearling, or perhaps two years old, for they accompany their dams so
long; but, for my part, I had not noticed much difference in their size.
It was but two or three rods across the meadow to the foot of the bank,
which, like all the world thereabouts, was densely wooded; but I was
surprised to notice, that, as soon as the moose had passed behind the veil
of the woods, there was no sound of foot-steps to be heard from the soft,
damp moss which carpets that forest, and long before we landed, perfect
silence reigned. Joe said, "If you wound 'em moose, me sure get 'em."

We all landed at once. My companion reloaded; the Indian fastened his
birch, threw off his hat, adjusted his waistband, seized the hatchet, and
set out. He told me afterward, casually, that before we landed he had seen
a drop of blood on the bank, when it was two or three rods off. He
proceeded rapidly up the bank and through the woods, with a peculiar,
elastic, noiseless, and stealthy tread, looking to right and left on the
ground, and stepping in the faint tracks of the wounded moose, now and
then pointing in silence to a single drop of blood on the handsome,
shining leaves of the Clintonia Borealis, which, on every side, covered
the ground, or to a dry fern-stem freshly broken, all the while chewing
some leaf or else the spruce gum. I followed, watching his motions more
than the trail of the moose. After following the trail about forty rods in
a pretty direct course, stepping over fallen trees and winding between
standing ones, he at length lost it, for there were many other moose-
tracks there, and, returning once more to the last bloodstain, traced it a
little way and lost it again, and, too soon, I thought, for a good hunter,
gave it up entirely. He traced a few steps, also, the tracks of the calf;
but, seeing no blood, soon relinquished the